To boost Taiwan’s international competitiveness, the government has launched a “bilingual nation” policy, pledging to achieve this goal by 2030. After the new Cabinet takes shape, it should promptly review the implementation of the policy, and then make adjustments if needed.
How can Taiwanese’s English be improved? The answer is simple: Better English education would be a start. Oddly, many universities and even the College Entrance Examination Center (CEEC) are doing the opposite at the moment, taking Taiwan further away from becoming a “bilingual nation.”
The CEEC, for example, which holds the General Scholastic Ability Test (GSAT) in January as well as the Advanced Subjects Test (AST) in July every year, last year removed English as a subject from the AST. Such assessment without the English subject is certainly unfavorable to the bilingual policy. The removal of English has misled the public into believing that English is no longer valued and that they should not take it seriously.
Soon after the AST abandoned English, as many as 104 university departments announced that they would no longer take the results of the GSAT’s English subject as a criterion for admission starting this year, hoping to attract freshmen by dumping English amid the “low-birthrate tsunami” hitting Taiwan. Due to this trend, many in Taiwan seem to believe that English-related departments at universities are of limited use, leading to a plunge in enrollment.
Meanwhile, some universities have been saving personnel costs by turning English courses from compulsory to elective or cutting them extensively. This means that college students do not need to learn English anymore. There are also universities that have been cheating the Ministry of Education out of its grants for “EMI” (English-medium instruction) courses by fabricating various programs, and schools that have been overdoing EMI by teaching Chinese in English only, departing from the original intention of the bilingual policy.
As for elementary and high schools, the biggest challenges remain the insufficiency in English class hours, the shortage of competent English teachers and the rigidity of teaching methods.
To enhance the public’s English skills, the Cabinet should first instruct the CECC to resume the AST’s English subject, and encourage universities to take the test results of the English subject as a criterion for admission, which would help reverse people’s impression that English is of little importance.
Next, it should prioritize pushing every university to provide quality English courses, rather than teaching all academic subjects in English only. Offering classes in English is not a bad idea, but it should be accomplished gradually, and with a strict review mechanism for the ministry’s EMI grants.
Finally, schools at all levels should increase the number of English courses, provide teacher training, and adopt pragmatic materials and flexible teaching methods simultaneously, such as using multimedia to guide students to communicate in English in the real world.
Taiwan’s average Test of English for International Communication score of 565 in 2021 lagged far behind the scores of its neighbors such as Japan (574), South Korea (679) and Malaysia (681), showing that improving Taiwanese’s English skills is necessary.
However, the government seems to have got the focus wrong, working hard to promote EMI courses while sitting back and watching the CEEC remove English as a subject and universities cut English courses. As its bilingual policy fails to clarify the order of priority, it can hardly tackle the problems at the root.
Eddy Chang is a university assistant professor of English.
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